


Fall For a Shooting Star

by yespolkadot_kitty



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Agent Whiskey AU, F/M, Romantic Drama, Witness Protection, a lot of nonsense really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yespolkadot_kitty/pseuds/yespolkadot_kitty
Summary: AU. Retired from active service, Agent Whiskey runs a country ranch to shelter people needing protective custody. The latest of his waifs and strays, Sage Stewart, comes with more baggage than usual.
Relationships: Jack | Whiskey (Kingsman)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my beta & cheerleader, @songsformonkeys. Love you x

“You have got to be kidding me,” Sage muttered as the car pulled up to the ranch. The agent in the driving seat spared her a look, and Sage bit down on her lip to keep from saying anything else. They’d been driving for a full two hours, and for half of that had passed  _ nothing, _ just dirt roads, greenery and old ramshackle fences. Only a single bumfuck-esque gas station had punctuated the landscape.

“We’re here,” Agent Plymouth announced shortly, stopping the car by a pair of huge wooden gates. They looked aged but in good repair, the only distinguishing feature being the words SHOOTING STAR RANCH engraved into the top arches.

He reached out and buzzed a comm on the stone wall. After a few moments, a crackle was heard and the gates swung open. 

“I’m sorry,” Sage interjected as the car rumbled on the gravel path. “I just didn’t expect it to be, this, well, remote.”

Next to her in the sedan, Agent Hendricks smiled. “I’d feel the same. I’m a city girl to the bone.”

“Says she’d rather die than go without a cut and colour every twelve weeks,” Plymouth groused, but Sage only smiled.

She’d spent the last four days with these agents and she knew that Hendricks and Plymouth loved each other in their own way.

“But this is the safest thing,” Hendricks added. “Agent Whiskey will take good care of you. He saved my life, a few years back, in the field. He’s a dedicated agent.”

“He’s a dedicated hillbilly is what he is,” Plymouth groused, and earned himself a swat around the ear from Hendricks.

“So,” the female agent asked as the car rumbled further down the path, towards a big ranch house that looked like it was built around 1900, “Do you want to go over the cliffnotes one more time?”

Sage settled back in her seat, chewing her bottom lip absently. “I’m Sage Stewart. Taking a sabbatical for work. Saw the ad for a housekeeper online, wanted to escape to the country for a while to get over a breakup. “ She smoothed a hand over the fall of her hair. “I’m more comfortable with all that than I am with my sudden redhead status.”

“Okay,” Plymouth said from the driver’s seat. “Not even Whiskey knows your  _ real _ name, all right? It’s safer for everyone. Over the years he’s sheltered over a dozen people at the Shooting Star, and they’ve all eventually been able to return to their normal lives. You will, too.”

Sage swallowed as the car rolled to a stop by the house. This late in the day, dusk was starting to creep in at the edges of the big Kentucky skyline, bringing with it the chirp of cicadas and the herald of birdsong. “Got it,” she murmured, some - okay,  _ most _ \- of her bravado slipping as Agent Hendricks waked around and opened the passenger door.

“Yo, Whiskey,” she heard Plymouth call out as footsteps approached down the steps to the porch of the big house.

The car door opened and she thanked Hendricks, stepping out of the air conditioned sedan into the humid Kentucky air, the heat licking at her arms, bare in the simple grey sundress the agents had given her to wear - her new wardrobe was  _ nothing _ like her closet at home, filled with designer items.

“Sage, this is Agent Whiskey,” Hendricks announced as Sage looked up at the man tasked with keeping her alive for next goodness-knew-how-long.

The tall man tipped his black Stetson to her with a finger. “Ma’am.”

What had she expected? Not… this. Not a long-legged cowboy in worn, darkwash denim that fit him like it was painted on, big, soulful brown eyes and a neat moustache that framed his mouth, making her immediately wonder how he tasted.

Of whiskey? Or something stronger?

“Thanks for having me,” Sage said automatically, offering her hand.

Whiskey took her palm between both of his, and the gun calluses on his hands brushed her softer skin before he pulled away. “I give you my word on behalf of Statesman that you’ll be safe here,” he murmured in that deep, husky-edged Southern-comfort voice. With a voice like that, he could read the phonebook and she’d be enthralled.

Hendricks pulled a suitcase from the back of the sedan and passed it to Whiskey, who carted it up the steps. 

Sage knew firsthand that the suitcase was full of plain clothes - nothing that would attract attention or stand out. 

The opposite of what she would choose for herself.

But exactly what Sage Stewart would wear.

“This it, sugar?” he asked, his gaze meeting hers and holding.

Sage automatically bristled. “That’s it - but less of the pet names, if you don’t mind.”

Whiskey glanced at Plymouth and the two shared a speaking look, but he just shrugged. “Whatever makes you comfortable. What’ll I call you?”

“Am- Sage will be fine,” she stuttered. “That’s my name, after all.”

Hendricks patted her on the shoulder, and then at Sage’s little nod, drew her into a hug.

“Whiskey’s a good man,” she whispered into Sage’s hair. “A little rough around the edges is all, but you of all people should know, it’s best not to judge a book by its cover. There’s more to this cowboy than meets the eye.”

Sage released a shaky breath. She’d become really comfortable with Hendricks and Plymouth over the last few days; hated having to say goodbye now. But she had little choice in the matter. “Thank you,” she murmured back. “I really am sorry for being such a bitch.”

Hendricks laughed and drew back from the hug. “You weren’t. And besides, an attempt on a girl’s life tends to make her a little grumpy. I get it. Take care, and you’ve got our number if you need anything. Whiskey also has a direct line to Plymouth.”

Sage turned to see the two men deep in conversation. Whiskey’s head was tipped low, listening, and he nodded every so often at something the heavier-set man said, one hand on his hip, his fingers long and tanned. As she gazed at them, Whiskey turned and their eyes met. Something wordless and electric passed between them as his chocolate-brown eyes drank her in, and for a second, every inch of her skin felt like it had been licked by fire.

She broke the eye contact. 

“Thank you both. Really. I, ah…”

“It’s getting late,” Whiskey began, turning from his conversation with Plymouth. “Let’s get y’all settled, shall we? I’ll show you to your room and we can have some supper. Plymouth, Hendricks-” he tipped his hat with a finger- “I’ll take it from here.”

Sage stood awkwardly as the agents climbed back into the car, watching as they drove back down the gravel path, taking any hope of her old life with them - for the foreseeable future, at least.

She stood in the sunshine until the car disappeared through the big wooden gate, and then she allowed herself one big, internal sigh. The pity party could come later when she was out of sight of Agent Whiskey’s big brown eyes, eyes that seemed to see too much already.

“Ready?” he asked, and his tone was soft this time, his voice almost a caress in the encroaching dusk. The way he might sound sinking into a woman’s body, the way he might sound trailing his lips along the inside of her thigh.

“Not at all,” Sage made herself say cheerfully. “But let’s get on with it anyway.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whiskey and Sage get better acquainted. (no not like that, not yet anyway).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my lovely beta, @songsformonkeys !

“This’ll be your room, sug - uh, Sage,” Whiskey pronounced, setting the suitcase by the door. Sage had noticed that he walked with a slight limp in his right leg, had favoured it when going up the stairs. “You hungry?”

Her stomach growled before she could form an answer, and a smile tugged at Whiskey’s lips below his neatly trimmed moustache. “I’ll take that as a yes. Why don’t you get on and settle in. I’ll holler when the food is done.”

Sage glanced at him, surprised. “I’m…. supposed to be here as your housekeeper? Shouldn’t I be cooking?”

An amused smirk curved the corner of Whiskey’s mouth. “What kind of piss-poor excuse for a Southern gentleman would I be if I put you to work fresh off the boat?” He shook his head. “Big city ideas, I take it.”

Sage hesitated with her hand on the suitcase handle, unsure if he meant to be kind, or patronising. “I want to assure you, Agent… Whiskey, that I can pull my weight.”

“That’s not under dispute,” he murmured, tipping his hat with a finger again. Under it, Sage could just make out dark curls brushing the collar of his red plaid shirt, worn open over a plain white vest. He turned, giving her a view of a  _ spectacular _ ass in his worn darkwash jeans. 

“Couldn’t have been balding,” Sage muttered under her breath. “Couldn’t have been three hundred pounds and covered in Sasquatch hair. Course not.”

The room she’d been allocated was spacious, a big window on one side, looking out on the buildings of the ranch. A Queen-size bed sat on the right hand side of the space, a private bathroom on the left. Nicely furnished but nondescript, in the same way a hotel room usually was, Sage could well believe that many men, women or children had passed through here, needing sanctuary.

She unpacked, examining the clothes that Statesman had chosen to furnish her with. All plain cotton sundresses, serviceable sandals and some work boots, light-wash jeans, a couple of flannel shirts and some scoop-neck t-shirts.  _ So _ not her deal. But she was Sage Stewart now, a small-town girl who’d taken this job to recover from a broken heart.

Not too far from the truth, she supposed.

Her dress had become wrinkled from travel, so she set it in the laundry hamper by the door and peeled off the rest of her clothes, sticky from the oppressive summer heat.

The jets of the shower rained down on her, the water pressure powerful and welcome, and the shower gel on the shelf, unopened, turned out to smell pleasantly of ginger. Sage soaped herself, and when she glanced down at the base of the shower, an image of Whiskey on his knees before her flashed before her eyes, unbidden.

_ Must be a stress reaction. _

She towelled off, putting the weird vision aside - clearly her hormones were acting up - and chose, at random, another dress, this one a faded coral shade, nipped in at the waist with elastic and flaring at the knees. It screamed Pollyanna to Sage, but… “This is who I am now, I guess. Probably bake brownies for school fayres,” she groused, and then did her best to put her pity party away.

Refreshed, when she opened the door, the tantalising smell of frying bacon and cooking spaghetti floated across the house to her. Her stomach made its empty status known once again, and Sage hurried across the big hallway into the kitchen.

Hat off, Whiskey stood at the big range stove, picture windows before him, two large pans on the go, one full of bubbling water, another cooking chopped bacon, spinach and tomatoes. The smell made saliva pool in her mouth.

The radio churned out some sort of honky-tonk country tune from its spot on the refrigerator, and Whiskey’s hips moved very subtly to the beat.

Sage couldn’t say that the gentle sway of his ass in those painted-on jeans didn’t make her hungry also, but for a different kind of meal.

“Hope you like bacon and spinach spaghetti,” Whiskey said without turning, his voice husky at the edges. It’s one of the only three things I can make with relatively pleasant results.”

“Well, it smells amazing. Can I set the table?”

“Sure thing, darl- Sage.” He tossed her a look, mischievous and not at all apologetic. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“I bet,” she muttered. 

“Placemats’re in that drawer, cutlery underneath,” Whiskey directed her. 

Sage set the table neatly, wishing she had some sort of dressing like she would have at home; a vase of peonies maybe, or a candelabra with some gently lit pillar candles. The rough-spun tablecloth, plain cork placemats and white plates did have a certain homey charm to them. They certainly suited the man who currently drained the spaghetti into a colander, shaking it to jettison any residual water.

“Surf’s up,” he called cheerfully, just as Sage set two glasses of tap water at their places and sat down, smoothing the coral fabric of her sundress over her thighs.

Whiskey set the filled bowls down, and as he bent, a few stray curls of hair tumbled loose from his hairline. They looked soft; touchable. “Well, ain’t this cosy.”

Sage picked up a fork. “Thank you. It smells great.”

After mirroring her, Whiskey sipped some water, met her gaze. “Y’all usually say grace, or anything like that?”

“No, no. Thanks for asking.”

“All right then.” He dug into his food and Sage did, too, the background music from the radio covering any awkward silences and relieving Sage of the duty to try and make small talk.

The food was hearty and tasty. Not what she was used to, but, probably what a woman like Sage Stewart would eat on the regular.

“Thank you,” she said afterwards. “Really.”

Whiskey lifted a shoulder and dropped it in a sort of half shrug. “You’re welcome. It’s my job. To keep you safe. And I take it seriously.” He held her gaze as he spoke, and something silent and electric passed between them, making a bolt of lust stir in Sage’s belly.

“Would you like me to clean up?” she asked, to avoid thinking about that.

“Oh, ye of little faith. Got a dishwasher, so I’ll stack ‘em up,” he responded cheerfully. “No, you look beat. So down the hall-” he gestured -”Is my room. A few doors down is the rec room, and next to that, the main bathroom, if you want a soak in the tub. I swear to you, I will never enter your room without your  _ express _ permission.”

Why that sort of disappointed Sage, she couldn’t quite say.

  
  



End file.
